Back again for another installment of Learning Italian.
This time it is week 2.

As you will hear in my video, this week was a wake up call. As much as studying on your own can make you feel good, smashing through levels of a new app I found "Duolingo" and a few other self learn techniques I will mention, nothing beats having a real tutor to bring you back down to earth.

You can think you're great by having pages and pages of notes (which do help) but at the end of the day, when Diana (my tutor) started speaking proper Italian to me...I got lost. Real fast.

Listen along here about this weeks progress and the major things I learned.

[drop_cap]New Strategies implemented this week[/drop_cap]

Downloading and use of Duolingo
Duolingo is one of the fastest growing apps on the AppStore. It is also on Android and the web. It helps you learn languages quicker and gets you familiar with the wording. It uses different methods which include you speaking the language, your recognising words, multiple choice questions, phrase identification and more.
This is all wrapped up inside a 'gaming' style experience which makes it both fun and challenging to learn. The app is also free.

Listening to Italian podcasts
One of the quickest ways to learn a language is to full emerse yourself in that language. The very best way would be to go to Italy and throw yourself in the deep end with the locals. Since I do not have the option of heading to Italy at the moment (because of Basilico...my dog), I will have to settle for other methods.

At the top of this is using podcasts as an additional learning tool and recognizing how words are strung together and the sentence structure is formed.

To be honest it's not easy to know what is going on, but words and highlights in the presenters voices can help.

You can download the app: "Tune In Radio" on your phone, or you can search for it online.

One of my favourite programs (which is free) goes through various langauge learning stuff and is highly recommended. You can find it here.

Or by typing: "Absolute Beginner Italian" into the tune in app.

[drop_cap]Major Concepts Learned this Week[/drop_cap]

Masculine Vs Feminine vs Mix

The biggest thing I learned this week was that you use different vowels at the end of words to determine whether you are speaking in masculine language or feminine language (or mixed).

You can see below:

English Word

Masculine Version

Feminine Version

Mixed Version

Tall

Alto

Alte

Alti

Short

Basso

Basse

Bassi

Blonde

Biondo

Bionde

Biondi

Dark Hair

Bruno

Brune

Bruni

We worked through the above using the picture I have attached below.

It has a series of questions that you have to answer, which helps you identify the situation.

2. Syntax

The way sentences are structure in linguistics is called: "Syntax".

"In linguistics, syntax is the set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentences in a given language, specifically word order."

My reading of very basic Italian is getting better very fast (faster than I thought it would) and despite it being a beginner's book (with pictures) I am starting to grasp and could read what whats happening.

Which as described above is the syntax of Italian.

[drop_cap]New Words Learned[/drop_cap]

Each morning I have been getting up and writing down (to get the eye to brain memory happening) 50 or so words. Some days I am learning the same words. But it's great repetition and learning. Slowly we are getting there.

Italian Word + (English phenetik)

English Translation

Lei (lay)

she

Lou (loo-ey)

he

Professoressa (prof-ess-oh-rress-ah)

female professor

pane

bread

il ragazzo

the boy

contento

happy (male, singular)

contenti

happy (male, plural)

conenta

happy (female, singular)

contene

happy (female, plural)

giornale

newspaper

legerre

write

scrivere

read

acqua

water

uova

egg

uoma

man

L'uomi

the man

cuoco

cook

bottiglia

bottle

donna

woman

donne

women

sono/sei

are

tu

you

mi chiamo Hayden

my name is Hayden

prego

welcome

molto bene

very good

cosi cosi

not bad

pesce

fish

grazie

thank-you

favore

please

io sono

i am

zucchero

sugar

caffe

cafe

crema

cream

cioccolato

chocolate

biscotto

cookie

tazza

cup

gelato

ice-cream

ho

have

[drop_cap]Challenges this week[/drop_cap]

The biggest challenges are knowing the difference between the words that are very similar but different spelling. From what I can gather, Italian uses different suffixes (the letters at the end of common words) to describe different tense. Eg: The boy drinks or the boy as a drink etc. Learning the difference between these and knowing when to use the word beve, bevi or bevette will be great.

I spoke to Diana about this challenge also and she said we will get to that, but to come back down to Earth and let's focus on what we need to learn now....that stuff is too advanced at the moment. (which is where my wake up call came from).

[drop_cap]Finishing Up[/drop_cap]

It was a great week and despite feeling overwhelmed, it is always good to remind yourself that Rome wasn't built in a day. Must keep pushing and putting in the work.

Thanks for watching/learning.

Hayden

P.s If I got anything wrong or if you have any questions, please feel free to email me or drop a comment below.